


The Trial

by Mengde



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Pyschological Horror, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mengde/pseuds/Mengde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having defeated Amon and unlocked her airbending, Korra has begun training in the ancient art with Tenzin. But the price of being an airbender is higher than she knows, and she is about to face a test which will tax her to her utmost limits and beyond - or break her, and leave her to die alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trial

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone. My name's Mengde, I don't own Korra or the Avatar world, etc. I just rewatched Book 1 in preparation for Book 2 in September and felt like writing something. I know there's supposed to be a six-month gap between Books 1 and 2, so this falls... somewhere in there. I'm not pinning anything down for sure. I've rated this T because it gets pretty dark and there's some violence.
> 
> You know, for kids!

It was a clear, beautiful day on Air Temple Island. The sun was high in the sky, the tide was low, and the wind whispered pleasantly through the trees as Korra sent Tenzin flying with a gale-force blast of air.

The airbending master righted himself in midair, his robes billowing about him as he deftly landed on his feet. "No, that's not it," he said, obviously more than a little irritated. "I said unbalance me, not try to throw me off the island!"

"Sorry!" Korra snapped, more than a little aggravated herself. They'd been doing this for three hours, and for three weeks before that. "I just don't get how the fine control helps! Why would I use tricky stuff when I can overpower your defense?"

Tenzin sank into a cross-legged meditative pose with his usual effortless fluidity. Korra hesitated, then – seeing he was clearly expecting her to join him – tromped over and plopped herself down in front of him. She might be an airbender now too, but she doubted she would ever have his grace.

"The point isn't to overpower at all," Tenzin said crossly. "Airbending is about the avoidance of conflict and aggression. Redirecting force rather than matching or overcoming it."

"I remember you tossing Hiroshi's mechs around like antflies," Korra countered.

"A spear might be a thrusting weapon but you should never neglect the shaft," Tenzin pointed out. "Airbending is all about versatility, too. But its central tenets are avoidance and redirection, and for that you need control and stillness. You need to master these aspects if you're going to master the whole."

Korra shook her head. "Tenzin, you know how much trouble I had even learning to airbend in the first place. It's not something that comes naturally to me. I'm not the kind of girl who tries to avoid anything."

"And that's one of your great strengths, Korra, but it's not one you should use here. You need more control to be an airbending master."

Irritation rising in her again, Korra threw up her hands. "Fine! I'll just magically forget years of my earthbending teachers telling me to stand my ground and my firebending teachers telling me to be more aggressive! I'm sure it'll be real easy!"

Tenzin leveled a finger at her. "That, right there, is your problem. You've never learned to hold yourself in stillness. Emotionally or otherwise."

"Easy for you to say that, but you going to show me how or just give me grief?" Korra snapped.

She could see she'd hit a nerve from the way the air curled menacingly around Tenzin. "It's not something that can be learned in a day! It requires a lifetime of meditation and self-discipline!"

"So why are you on my case about it when you know my lifetime's been the  _opposite of that?_ " Korra countered, pleased that she'd caught Tenzin in his own argument.

Her feeling of triumph melted away when she saw the sobering look of concern on Tenzin's craggy features. Concern, and – fear?

"Because you will need it for the test," Tenzin replied.

"Test?" Korra asked, confused. "Isn't that what we're doing now?"

Tenzin shook his head. "No. A few weeks ago, I… received a message from Father. In a dream. He wants you to face the Trial."

A shiver crawled up Korra's spine. The word was nothing new; her instructors in the White Lotus were always going on about 'the trials ahead.' But the way Tenzin said it now – a whisper sounded in her mind, the echo of a fear passed down through uncounted generations of airbenders. The  _Trial_.

She could feel every one of her past lives shivering with her.

"Aang appeared to you?" Korra asked, making a conscious effort to shove down the fear.

"Not directly," Tenzin replied. "Past Avatars can only appear that way to their future selves. He sent an intermediary, the nature spirit Hei Bai. It showed me his desire."

"And what  _is_ the Trial?"

She'd thought it impossible for Tenzin to look any graver. She'd been wrong.

"It's what all airbenders must face to master themselves and their element," he said. "And all Avatars too. I can't say more than that before we go." He stood. "My father faced it after he defeated the Fire Lord – he was frozen in the ice when he was twelve, four years before air nomads traditionally face the Trial. He went of his own free will. I faced it when I was sixteen; he took me. Someday, my daughters and sons will face it. I will take them, then."

"And me?" Korra asked.

"You're new to airbending, Korra," Tenzin said, "but you're seventeen, and a prodigy, and the Avatar at that. I fear there will be many challenges in your life unlike anything we've ever faced. Father knows this too. That's why he sent Hei Bai."

"So you've been pushing me all these weeks to have control and stillness because you think I can't handle it without them?" Korra asked, feeling her pride begin to rise. "Tenzin, come on. I managed to face down Amon. I have the Avatar State. How bad could the Trial be?"

He gave her a severe look. "Don't be proud, Korra. I saw your face when I first told you that you need to face the Trial. You were scared. All your past lives remember it and are afraid of it, even if you don't know why. All of them, fully realized Avatars. Frightened."

Without further elaboration, he began striding away, toward the compound. "We're leaving tomorrow morning at dawn," he said. "This won't wait any longer."

Korra stared at his back, watching the airbending master walk away. There was an almost unbearable sense of finality to his movements.

_What in the world could frighten a fully realized Avatar?_

* * *

That night, Korra sat cross-legged on her bed, fists pressed together, forcing her way through the buzz of distracting thoughts and fears toward the quiet place where her past lives waited.

It was difficult.  _The Trial_ kept ringing through her mind,  _the Trial,_ the collective fear of all her past selves of  _the Trial._  What could frighten an Avatar?

But she persisted, and calmed her mind, and suddenly Aang was in the room with her.

He gave her a warm smile, seated at the foot of her bed. "Korra. You're looking well."

"Aang," Korra said. "What's this Trial you want me to face? Did you really send Hei Bai to Tenzin to tell him that?"

Aang nodded, his expression just as grave as his son's had been earlier that day. "I did. Defeating Amon was a big step, Korra, but your weakness has always been in not knowing when to use force and when to step back. You need to learn control and stillness if you're going to master airbending.

"For most airbenders, the Trial is a way for them to demonstrate those qualities they've learned over their entire lifetime studying as an air nomad. For you… I think it'll give you the push you need to get there."

"But Tenzin said I need that control and that stillness to get  _through_ the Trial," Korra protested. "If I don't have them going in…"

"You didn't have airbending or the avatar state going into your fight with Amon, but you did alright there anyway," Aang pointed out. "You don't learn by rote practice and self-development the same way I did, Korra. You learn by overreaching, getting yourself banged up, slamming into your limits and then breaking them. And that's okay. But it means that this is going to be particularly dangerous for you."

Korra frowned. "How dangerous?"

Aang blew out a long breath – not that Avatar spirits needed to breathe, she knew, but she could tell he wasn't happy about what he had to say next. "I'm not going to lie to you, Korra. The Trial is a very dangerous test. No Avatar has ever failed, but all of them went through it after years and years of study with the air nomads. That's time you don't have. Events are in motion that will need your intervention, and you need to be ready for them. Now."

"You still haven't said just how dangerous it is," Korra pointed out suspiciously.

"Because you already know," Aang replied. "You just don't want to admit it."

Korra blinked, and he was gone.

She fell back onto her pillow, fighting down the rising sense of panic she felt. She would not be afraid. She would get through this, just like she'd gotten through every other test and obstacle life had thrown at her. The panic died, but the fear remained. It was an ancient fear, she knew, the first fear felt by man.

The knowledge that tomorrow she might very well die.

* * *

"Tell me, Korra," Tenzin said as he steered Oogi around a bank of clouds. "Have you ever stopped to compare airbending and the other elements?"

"I guess so," Korra replied. "I mean, air is opposed by earth, and –"

"No, not like that," Tenzin interrupted her. "I mean, have you examined airbending as an art in comparison the other bending arts?"

"Not really. I mean, I've only been able to bend it for a little while."

Tenzin nodded. "You're not alone. Most people don't ever compare air to the other elements, simply because they assume it's more straightforward than the others. After all, air is everywhere. Air is the element of freedom, and offers the greatest versatility and opportunity to bend. But think about the other elements. What do they all have in common?"

Korra frowned, trying to puzzle out what Tenzin was getting at. "I don't know. I mean, I guess water and earth both need sources to draw on. You can't waterbend without water and you can't earthbend without stone or dirt. But I guess fire doesn't need anything in the same way."

"No?" Tenzin asked.

She got it a second later. "Or maybe it does. In firebending, power comes from the breath. And you can't breathe without air."

"Precisely," Tenzin told her. "After all, have you ever heard of a firebender being able to bend underwater? So, you're right. The other three elements all require a source of power. Fire's source is a little more removed from the end result than water or earth, but it's the same principle. What else do they all have in common?"

"They all have advanced techniques that not all benders can perform," Korra essayed. "Firebending has lightningbending, earthbending has metalbending, and waterbending…" She shuddered despite her best efforts. "It has bloodbending."

"Also precisely right. So what do you think airbending's advanced technique is?"

She blinked. "Uh… I never thought about it. Flying, I guess?"

Tenzin chuckled. "Nice try, but flying is just an application of airbending's most basic principles. All the other bending styles' techniques transcend their basic principles while remaining true to them."

"I've got no clue, then," Korra said.

The smile fell from Tenzin's face. "You will by the time the Trial is over," he said. "We're here."

They passed over a cloud and suddenly they  _were_ there: an enormous, bald mountain, bereft of snow on its peak or trees on its slopes. It was like an ugly, rocky deformation thrusting itself out of the earth. Korra felt the fear returning. There was something  _wrong_ about the mountain. What sort of place was it that no trees grew and no snow fell?

Oogi landed at the top with more than a little reluctance, complaining in low growls the entire time.

"We won't be long, Oogi," Tenzin assured the sky bison. "Follow me, Korra."

They negotiated their way down the treacherous slope for perhaps a hundred feet until, as they rounded a rock face, there it was – a cave entrance, yawning open in the side of the mountain like a gaping wound. Korra instinctively took a step back and nearly teetered off the narrow mountain path. She could feel the dark chi emanating from the cave mouth, and she was about as far from spiritual as an Avatar could be.

"The Trial is in there," Tenzin said.

"You want me to go in  _alone?_ " Korra asked.

"It wouldn't be a Trial if you had help," Tenzin said, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. "Father watched me go in without wavering. How can I do less for you? How could I do less for my children?" He gestured at the cave. "There's a path inside that will lead you to the roots of the mountain and out. I'll be waiting at the exit with Oogi. You have three days."

"What happens if I don't make it out by then?"

"Then I'll fly away and leave you, because you'll be dead."

Now the fear was out in the open, as stark and ugly as the mountain itself. Korra felt herself trembling. She was back on Aang Memorial Island, her body useless and her bending blocked, surrounded, Amon looming over her, his eyes slits behind his mask. With a start, she realized she was panting, and sweat had beaded on her forehead.

"You can do this, Korra," Tenzin said. "Father wouldn't have asked me to bring you here if he didn't think you could do it."

Gritting her teeth, Korra put one foot in front of the other until she stood directly before the cave mouth. The opening seemed to expand and contract in the corners of her vision, though she knew it had to just be a trick of the light.

"See you on the other side, Tenzin," Korra said, and she started down.

* * *

It was pitch black in the mountain, no light filtering in from anywhere. Korra kept aloft a flame to let her see, infinitely grateful that she could firebend. She could only imagine the air nomads feeling their way through here, blind and lost in the dark. The tunnel had already split eight or nine times; she'd favored the paths that seemed to slope downward more, hoping to be out of here as quickly as humanly possible.

There was no sound in the mountain. Korra expected to hear the drip of water, or the susurrus of small things moving in their dark homes, but this place seemed dead in every sense of the word.

After a while, the silence began to unnerve her. There was nothing but the shuffling sound of her footsteps as she negotiated the uneven terrain, her footsteps and her breathing.

Her breathing, which was becoming more and more labored…

Korra felt a sudden spike of panic strike her. How deep was she? How long had she been walking? An hour at the most, surely. Longer? There was no way to tell time in this place. And her breath, why was it so hard to breathe?

She stared, the realization accompanied by a horrible, looming dread, at the flame she held aloft. Breath. Firebending drew its power from the breath. And the air was thin in here. She was using too much of it, too quickly, to keep her flame burning.

The thought of being trapped in here, forever, lost in the dark, crashed down on her like a physical thing. Korra felt her knees go weak. She braced herself against one of the walls of the tunnel, then realized it was much closer than she'd thought it was. Was the tunnel getting smaller? No, the walls were moving, pressing in on her. There was so little air here, and this space was so small, and –

Korra let her flame die out, plunging herself into darkness. Now there was nothing but the sound of her panting, gasping for air. But at least the walls were no longer closing on her.

She had to keep moving, she knew. So she stumbled forward, blind, feeling her way along the wall, the stone rough beneath her palm. She dearly wished she had Lin Bei Fong's earthsense, but Lin had learned from her mother, and her mother had taught the skill to her and Aang alone.

_Aang._

As she walked, Korra closed her eyes – they were useless in the dark anyway – and tried to find her calm center, tried to call on Aang's spirit.

_I'm sorry, Korra. I can't help you here._

_No!_ She tried to call out to him, but Aang vanished, gone from her. Korra instinctively tried to push past him, to Roku, or Kiyoshi, but they were distant too, aloof. She was in this alone, she was in this utterly and completely alone.

Her dread mounting, Korra tried to call upon the Avatar State, to access the power and knowledge and experience of all her past lives, but that was closed off to her, too. Aang had meant it, she realized. Her past selves could not, would not, help her here, in any way.

She wanted to cry, but she feared the air it would take up. So Korra kept stumbling on, feeling her way forward, one aimless step at a time. She had to believe all these tunnels eventually led somewhere. She had to.

Then she smacked into the first dead end, and she knew she was in very deep trouble indeed.

* * *

Korra had no idea how long she had been groping blindly through the dark. It could have been hours or days. The three-day time limit loomed before her. Would Tenzin really fly away and leave her for dead? That had to be part of the Trial, she thought wildly. He would come in here, and find her, and she would try the Trial again another time. Of course. He wouldn't let her die in here. She was the Avatar, she was  _important._

She was also thirsty.

She had been stumbling through the dark for long enough that her palms had begun to blister from feeling her way along the rock and her legs ached. She was strong enough to wrestle a polar bear dog to the ground with her bare hands and trek dozens of miles in knee-deep snow in a single day, but this was different. The air was too thin in here, dangerously thin, and dry. She could feel every one of her ribs as her chest expanded and contracted over and over as she fought to suck in enough air to keep herself moving.

She had tried bending the air to herself, but while that might have relieved her for a moment, it just meant that she would then stumble into an area where the air was now too thin to even breathe. The first time she'd done that she'd almost passed out before the cloudiness in her mind had begun to clear away. Korra knew that if she passed out in here for more than a few seconds, it  _would_ be over for her.

There was the faintest sound. A drip.

Korra stiffened, listening in breathless silence. Had it been her imagination? Was she going crazy in this dark and silent hell?

No. There it was again. A drip. Water.

Korra fought the urge to bolt off in the direction of the sound. That would just end with her injuring herself. Instead, she kept moving forward, straining her ears. Every time she heard the drip, it seemed a little louder. The path split several times. Twice the drip began to grow fainter, so Korra retraced her steps and took the other road, and the drip grew louder again.

She was very close now, very close –

There was no more drip, because Korra felt the drop of water fall, landing square on her cheek. Deciding to risk the loss of air, she bent herself another flame, a tiny one. Even that light hurt her eyes, but she forced herself to look up at the ceiling. There it was – a single, long stalactite, the result of centuries upon centuries of water dripping down from an underground spring, building up layer after layer of minerals.

Korra didn't hesitate. She brought the entire ceiling down with an earthbending pull, not caring if she was blocking the tunnel. Thousands of pounds of rock and dust cascaded down mere feet from her, but it was followed by a cool, wonderful spray of water which doused her face and hair. The stream, which had been running through tiny crevices in the heart of the mountain, now poured down to collect in a pool at her feet. Korra bent the water right into her mouth, not caring that it tasted of dust and iron. It was the most glorious thing in the world.

Then the ground gave way beneath her feet.

Her flame went out and she tumbled through the dark, slamming into rock after rock until she finally hit the ground, hard, her body bruised and aching. Even so, she still had the presence of mind to bend the ground up around her in a shield. It kept her from being crushed by the tons of rock she had bent down out of the ceiling, which now followed her in her descent.

When the last of it had fallen, Korra bent her way out of the rubble. She created another tiny flame, being mindful of her eyes, and gasped when she saw where she'd ended up.

There was no doubt in her mind that this was the heart of the mountain. She was in a vast cavern, stretching for what seemed like forever in all directions. The ceiling was almost a hundred feet up; she'd been fortunate enough to have her fall broken multiple times by large natural columns of stone which thrust themselves up from the ground toward the roof of the cavern.

As Korra stared out at her surroundings, she became aware of something else. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Someone was in here with her.

There was a whisper of movement behind her. She whirled, fists clenched, her flame going out with the suddenness of the movement. The air in here was different than in the rest of the mountain. It wasn't thin; it was dank. Stagnant. It seemed heavy, almost, like it had settled here over thousands and thousands of years, weighed down with the dust of eons.

There it was again. Behind her. Korra whirled again. Nothing. Without waiting to hear it she turned a third time, conjuring a new flame, a strong one, not caring if it hurt her eyes.

The face in the light which grinned at her with wide, insane eyes was her own.

Korra shouted, the first noise she'd made in longer than she could remember, and blasted the apparition with a wall of flame. The fire guttered away a moment later, leaving nothing in its wake but empty stone, not even ash.

"What are you? Who are you?" Korra demanded, her voice not even echoing in the vastness of the cavern.

"What are you?" her own voice parroted back at her, but it was not her voice. It was harsh, and mocking. "A little girl lost in the dark."

Korra blasted out with a ring of fire in all directions, but there was still nothing.

"Who are you?" her voice continued. "Nobody. Not down here."

There was a hissing sound, a rush of air, and Korra's cheek was suddenly cut, tiny droplets of blood beading along the wound.

"The mountain takes them all," she laughed. " _I_ take them all."

Raising a shaking hand to her face, Korra felt her cheek. It was like she'd been cut with a razor, an impossibly fine and sharp one. There was barely any blood.

"Come out and fight me head-on!" Korra yelled. "I'm not afraid of you!"

Then there was no air in her lungs.

Korra choked, trying to breathe, but there was no air,  _anywhere._ Her fires guttered out. She tried to earthbend, hurling rock in random directions, but she had no idea where her attacker was. Spots danced before her eyes even in the blackness and she dimly felt herself collapse.

Just before she lost consciousness, the air returned, in the form of someone hissing into her ear.

" _You should be._ "

* * *

"I told you I would destroy you."

Korra jerked awake, fear pulsing through her. Amon stood over her, unmasked, but triumphant, her bending the victim of his bloodbending block.

No. This wasn't happening. She was in the mountain. She remembered.

"You're not Amon," she whispered.

Amon's face blurred, his features passing into formless shadow before returning as Korra's own. She realized she could see the transformation because of luminescent crystals which lined the rock in this part of the cavern – she must have been carried here.

"No I'm not," her doppelganger laughed.

"What are you?" Korra asked again.

"I'm what you could be," her shadow-self replied, pacing a wide circle around her. Korra struggled to sit up, her body protesting. Everything hurt.

"What I could be?"

"Effective," the other Korra said. "Powerful. Not like the helpless, sniveling little girl who got herself captured by Amon and nearly beaten without a fight. Not like the sad little nobody who's lying in front of me, lost in a mountain, abandoned by Tenzin."

Korra felt her throat tighten. "What?"

"Oh, yes," her other self hissed. "It's been three days, Korra. He flew away, just like he said he would."

"You're lying." Her cheek stung where it had been cut.

"You only  _want_ me to be lying. You want to solve everything by  _talking._ By  _wishing._  Korra doesn't  _act,_  she just cries and whines until Tenzin or Lin saves her." The other Korra leaned in close, sneering. "Them, or Mako."

"Don't you say his name!" Korra snarled.

She was suddenly inches away from Mako's face, his beautiful amber eyes drilling into her own. "I'll always be there for you, Korra," he simpered, reaching out to stroke her face.

Korra screamed at him, fire erupting from her mouth in the same exhalation, but he was suddenly on the other side of her, shadows blurring his features again until he came to a halt. "I love you," he said, his voice dripping with saccharine insincerity. "But only because you stole me from  _her._ " In a blur he was Asami, advancing on Korra, an Equalist lightning glove on her outstretched hand. "He was mine and you took him!" she screamed, lashing out in an explosive slap at Korra's face which would electrocute her if it hit.

Acting on instinct, Korra earthbent herself into the stone of the floor, dodging the blow. She twisted through the rock, reorienting herself, and leapt out of the ground to land on her feet, a flame in each hand. "Enough!" she shouted. "I have no idea who or what you are but I'm not taking any more of this!"

The shadows covered Asami, slithered away to reveal Tenzin. "But you're stuck here," he said. "Tenzin flew away. He left you here. He knew you didn't have what it takes to pass the Trial. He knew you would die down here. He  _knew._ "

"SHUT UP!" Korra screamed, pouring everything she had into a blast of fire aimed right at the apparition's face.

The fire withered and died mere feet from him. "You can't win like  _that,_ " he said, chidingly. "I said you didn't have the control or the stillness you need, Korra. I was right." He began to advance, taking slow, measured steps.

Blazing with rage, Korra tore man-sized chunks of rock from the ground and ceiling, hurling them at Tenzin with brutal force. He deflected them with casual waves of his hand, the stones shearing clean in half down the middle and parting to pass on either side of him. "You don't have what it takes to fight this power," he went on. "He abandoned you here. He wanted to see you die." A flick of his finger and Korra's other cheek was bleeding.

"HOW?" she roared. "WHAT ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS? TELL ME!" Desperate, Korra called on the Avatar State, reaching out for its power, but her past lives remained closed to her. They would not help her. She summoned the most powerful blasts of wind she could, hammering the advancing figure, but he seemed completely unaffected.

In a rush he was behind her, now, standing there, only it was no longer Tenzin, it was Aang. "No, we won't help you," he said, turning, his eyes blazing with the power of the Avatar State. "You're a failure as an Avatar, Korra. I had Tenzin send you down here so you could die and pave the way for someone  _competent._ "

Korra lashed out at him, enveloping her fist in a glove of flame, but he caught the blow in his bare hand, the fire dying, and she felt razor pains run all up and down her arm. Blood spurted from dozens of hairline wounds and she staggered back, reeling.

"You are nothing," Aang said. "Return to nothing."

The air was gone again. Korra felt her breath catch in her throat. She knew she wouldn't wake up this time. It had gotten what it wanted. Like an animal, playing with its food to make its blood pump hot and fast before the kill…

_Return to nothing._

Korra stopped trying to breathe.

She looked Aang right in the eye, stared into the soulless depths of the thing standing in front of her, and she airbent. There was no gale blast of wind, not even a light breeze to rustle her hair. But she drew a breath, long and deep and defiant, and glared at the thing which had been so close to bringing her down.

"No," Aang said, but his voice was no longer Aang's. It was the rustle of dead leaves, the sighing of trees as they bent beneath the weight of falling snow. Emptiness and time and death.

"I understand what Tenzin was saying now," Korra said. "Why I needed control. And stillness."

"You have neither," the thing wearing Aang's face whispered. "You will die here alone and forgotten."

"No," Korra replied, bending the air it tried to steal from her lungs back into them. "I won't."

It hissed, leaping back, more shadow than flesh now. Korra could  _feel_ it bend the air, could see the perfect void it formed in front of it.

She understood what Tenzin had been saying.

As the creature bent the projectile of pure void straight for her heart, Korra bent back, collapsing it, neutralizing it. Too much force and she would only sharpen it more. Too little and she would do nothing at all. But she felt the flow of the air around the small, deadly dart of nothing, and she bent it just so, and then there was no flow at all, only the air rushing back into the space out of which it had been forced.

The cloth of her tunic rustled, just slightly, over her heart, as the disturbed air struck it.

"You have nothing left to threaten me," Korra said. "I can't destroy you, but you can't hurt me anymore."

It hissed, the only thing of Aang left in its vague, shadowy form the glowing of its eyes. "The mountain may still claim you," it said in its horrible voice.

"The mountain has nothing left to threaten me either," Korra said.

She walked past the shadow, not looking back, as she reached out, feeling the flow of the air around her. It was still, and dead – except for the smallest rustle, the tiniest flow.

Korra followed it, letting the current of the air guide her, until she emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, on the morning of the third day.

* * *

"That thing could have killed me," Korra said as she collapsed into Oogi's saddle.

Tenzin gave the sky bison's reins a tug as the beast took to the sky. "Yes, it could have," he said. "I told you the Trial is dangerous. Dangerous enough to frighten an Avatar."

Korra closed her eyes, seeing the shadow moving again. "What was it?"

"The monks believed it used to be one of them," Tenzin replied. "An air nomad from the eastern temple, who killed one of his brothers with the forbidden art and fled into the mountain."

The forbidden art. "Voidbending," Korra said.

"Exactly," Tenzin replied. "An airbender can make weapons out of the void between the air currents, sharper than any sword. Undetectable unless you're an airbender, impossible to dodge, impossible to block – the ultimate killing tool."

"That's why we have to have control. Because even if we don't try to do it, a powerful enough wind could separate the currents. I could kill someone without even meaning to."

Tenzin nodded. "Whether or not the monk meant to, nobody knows. But he fled into the mountain, and died there, and his spirit was trapped under the mountain by the weight of his guilt. It festered, and collapsed in on itself, and in the end there was nothing left but a void. A void that swallows everything, existing only to consume."

Korra hugged her arms to her chest, trying to ignore the scores of lacerations crisscrossing up and down her right arm from the sadistic voidbending of the lost spirit. "It almost had me until I realized it was playing with me on purpose, trying to get me as angry and hurt as possible before it killed me."

"It's nothing but hunger any longer," Tenzin said. "Hunger, and cunning. A dangerous combination."

"So it's a reminder of what could happen to any of us," Korra said. "And what  _will_ happen if we abuse the power we have."

"Airbending can put a hole in your chest or take the air from your lungs and most people have no way to defend against it," Tenzin agreed. "That's why we're pacifists. Because the alternative is utterly unthinkable."

Korra shivered again, curling up into a ball in Oogi's saddle. "Yeah. Unthinkable."

Tenzin glanced over his shoulder at her. "You should try to sleep. We'll be back on Air Temple Island soon and we can get those wounds looked at."

"Sure," Korra murmured, her eyes already drifting shut.

"Oh, and Korra?"

She cracked one eye back open. "What?"

Tenzin smiled at her. "Congratulations. You truly are an airbender now."

She slept, then, falling into a dreamless dark.

Her last thought was that – if she had learned anything at all – the trial was only just beginning.


End file.
